Does a blind person have the right to have an opinion?

Yesterday evening I was traveling home by train after having dinner with a friend. Suddenly a lady walks into the cabin asking people if they were willing to fill-in an evaluation form because the Dutch Railways are interested in their opinion about traveling by train. So she starts handing out forms and told us she would be back after a while to collect them again. By the time she approached the row I was sitting she paused and starts staring at me and my mobility cane. (I assume). I said “Yes, this is challenging!”. And instead of offering me assistance she said “Indeed” and remained totally silent. I responded with “Well, this says enough” and she continued handing out forms to the other passengers. So apparently it doesn’t matter what I think about the service the Dutch Railways offers me because I am blind. I must admit that I didn’t ask for assistance but I am still not sure if I had to. What I do know is that I felt totally ignored and that didn’t make me happy. So the question is: Do I have the right to have an opinion?-Harald

Donaldsaid

It seems that if these people aren’t told what to do in such a situation, they just don’t think for themselfs.
So yeah, I think you have the right to have an opinion, just don’t expect some poorly educated person to ask for it :)

Harald van Breederodesaid

It happens, not a lot but still. On one occasion I went shopping with my wife for a new digital VCR and I asked a question to the salesman and he started answering to my wife. We immediately left the shop. When I am not alone people sometimes ask my companion if I want something. It must be really scared to talk to a blind guy. In general I see the humor in these situations because most people weren’t trained properly, which I can understand, but if you are taking evaluations and that is your proffession I get upset.
-Harald

Martinsaid

Sorry, but this is about the previous message. I don’t know how a Braille display works but maybe, I think, that it’s not too simple to read and email address from a link that points to a jpg. I ask myself… isn’t it easier to write the email address instead of using a link that points to another website?

Sure you know it already, but… if you need it, the email address from Don is bc@remote-dba.net.

Harald van Breederodesaid

Thanks for the offer but I prefer reading books about Oracle using my screen reader on my laptop because it makes it easier to read the examples. In order to do so I need the book in a digital format. Since not all books are available in such format I sometimes request it from the author or publisher explaining that I am a blind Oracle instructor and that I like to read their books so I can inform my students about good or bad books they might want to read. Most authors and publishers, like Apress and O’Reilly, support this and send me the books I request but some publishers simply ignore my request.

Talking about accessibility it isn’t really nice to put an email address in a picture. Thanks Martin to translate this for screen reader users.
-Harald

this is a remarkable incident. I believe however, that “Do I have the right to have an opinion?” is not the right question. Of course you are entitled to an opinion as everybody else is (well, I guess your question was rhetoric anyway :-)).

To me it seems the question here is “Is Dutch Railways interested in your opinion (or anybody’s opinion, who cannot fill out the form himself in a matter of minutes)?” It seems, the answer would be “no”. Apparently the lady was not prepared for the situation, which might be an individual fault or a negligence of the corporation (i.e. not giving enough time to collect opinions in case it takes longer, not training collectors properly). That should be interesting to find out. I guess, if you ask them, they will respond that of course they are interested and will make sure it won’t happen again. The only comfort I can give you here is to reassure you that we “ordinary” customers are also neglected in many ways by big corporations, so in a way I can understand your feeling of being ignored although, of course, my situation is very much different from yours.